Re-edit all manuscripts — Poems by Sindhuri Rao

Re-edit all manuscripts!

This time, let us tell our girls

stories about fairytales, policies and politics.

Let her choose to be a Sita, a Mary, a Cinderella,

but do remind her, she comes from the same skin as Kali,

Nikhumbila and Durga too.

This time, tell her to shelter choices selfishly,

decapitate armed fears on streets,

hoard portable daggers along lipsticks in backpacks,

swap saplings of poison for punches,

grow big tongues, outspoke,

pin them out on foreheads with no apologies.

Warn her not about borders of visible bra strips;

Instead, broadcast about anonymous ghosts,

seasonal termites, predator skulls behind

oleander masks, rancid virtues.

As before, do not coronate her with classist narratives.

Tell her over and over

to give up on insecurities instead of her identity.

Gift her fertile wisdom of all great gods

so, if she ever loses everything,

she is her shrine; she can always come back to.

Not growing her womb, finding her tribe,

marching against threats,

cursing lovers, messy tampons on sheets,

a beer in hand, swinging fiddles on dance floors,

hosting sisterhood,

occupied uterus, revolting Pavlovian sacrifices,

spinning muslin sundresses

in work boots is all womanhood.

Read gospels about her forebearers,

the grandmothers, the sisters, the mothers,

how far their clan reigned each time

against fortified maneuvers, this

world has made them go through.

Remind her when hinged

midway with an unwelcomed lecher,

She is a werewolf,

Her fingers can cut hazard into halves,

Hunt and hang sternums in queues altogether through.

This time,

Let no earthly articles inhabit her spine.

Nor we metamorphose into gluttons

to devour her pride.

So, we perhaps not gather for another candlelight procession

On footmarks of her annihilation

Ever and again!

When love left last March!

Perhaps

you will forget the person,

the one that left you halfway

with broken shards of whys’ and how’s.

As the days pass by

maybe,

you will eventually love them less,

a little less.

You will not debate with the end anymore.

Your heart will accept the hurt-The lost war.

You will no longer scream at your grief,

you’ll stop chasing their name, now a pale noun.

You will hide in collected dusk of silence; not forever.

Come what may,

you will not be the same person anymore - Bold truth

Loving the world may not be like before,

it may not be a fresh start, certainly,

but you will heal slowly and wisely.

So, you can someday carry this

Unfinished story of yours

not as a burden

but as an extension of yourself!

Not a cliché! 

I watched God sitting on my grandmother’s bed

the day she left

singing yodels with sky and loons carefree.

The other day, back at home

he was on the backseat of my 3-year-old son

enjoying his first cycle ride

in our yard with a chuckling chin.

On Sunday, a mid-Autumn

he was brunching pomegranates in a pleated skirt,

along with my girlfriends and me.

But last night, as I was watching news

of a woman raped

with hips broken, Knuckles bent, eyes bleeding

He went quiet, ate leftover greens

went into his room

and never woke up the next morning!

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 About the Poet:

Sindhuri is from Bengaluru. She aspires to publish a book someday. An avid reader, she draws inspiration from writers like Ayn Rand, Sylvia Plath, and Tishani Doshi. You can find her on Instagram: @Swritez.